“I’m sorry?”
“As You Like Itby William Shakespeare. Rosalind says it in act 3 or 4, I believe. I may have gotten some of the lines wrong. It’s been years since I performed onstage.”
“I’m sure you did just fine. Was Delilah a Shakespeare fan?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Highbaugh said, looking disappointed. Harper decided she and the gallery owner were not on the same wavelength. “My dear mother was a great fan of Shakespeare, and of Delilah Mason.”
“Ah,” said Harper.
“She died recently,” he said, tears glinting in his eyes. “My mother.”
“Oh, I’m so very sorry to hear that,” said Harper. “Truly. My mother died several years ago, and I still feel her loss deeply.”
“I kept her safe through the worst of the pandemic, but once I let my guard down…” His expression hardened, and he shook his head. “I confess I haven’t been myself since. I’m adrift in grief, or so I’ve been told. There’s no one quite like one’s mother, is there?”
“There truly isn’t. Especially for the lucky among us who have a great one.”
“In any case,” Highbaugh continued, clearing his throat. “As I was saying to Mr. Philips, I’m afraid these paintings cannot be sold until the artist’s estate is settled.”
Harper nodded. “Of course. I was just looking.”
Highbaugh handed her his business card. “Please do come visit us again the next time you’re in our charming town. And while you’re in Carmel, may I suggest you should check out 17-Mile Drive? But be aware that one must pay for the privilege.”
“How much is it?”
“Oh dear, I’m not sure. Is it a problem?”
“I’m on a professor’s salary.”
“Understood. In that case you might stop by the Cypress Inn instead. It was movie star Doris Day’s hotel, and it’s free to poke your head in. It’s just down the block. Pet-friendly long before such a thing was popular, you know. Charming.”
“That appears to be the word for Carmel-by-the-Sea: ‘charming.’ ”
“Oh, it most certainly is. Do visit us anytime.”
As Harper was leaving, a very muscular, very bald man was about to enter, but stood back to hold the door for her. Ittook a moment for her to place him, but then she realized it was Sgt. Emerson, the MP she had encountered in the abandoned military housing. He nodded in recognition.
What washedoing here?
Don’t be a snob, Harper. An MP could be an art lover. Small towns lent themselves to these kinds of chance encounters.
Harper dropped by the Cypress Inn, which was, indeed, charming. Its old-fashioned air made her wonder what Carmel must have been like back in the day, with someone like Doris Day making her home here. And later, Clint Eastwood became mayor of the town. How many other celebrities were lurking behind the quaint facades of these seemingly sleepy, multimillion-dollar seaside cottages?
Remembering what Ellen had said about her favorite artist, Harper searched for the Thomas Kinkade gallery. She located it, appropriately enough, in a picture-perfect rambling pedestrian alley rimmed with darling shops and studded with lush baskets overflowing with flowers. The gallery was full of Kinkade’s otherworldly, idealized portraits of fairy-tale cottages and serene, sun-dappled rivers. An old stone bridge, a picturesque well complete with bucket, a couple in old-fashioned attire standing beneath a weeping willow. To Harper, the artwork was more appropriate to holiday calendars and mass-produced teacups, though the prices were anything but pedestrian. What some people will pay for a glimpse of paradise…
But as she read the descriptions closely, Harper learned that none of the paintings were by Thomas Kinkade himself but from the “Kinkade studio painters.” She asked the gallery owner about it.
“Original Kinkades are very rare, andveryexpensive,” thewoman said. “And after Thomas Kinkade died, his original canvases were worth a small fortune. He passed away at fifty-four, you know. Far too young.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Out of curiosity, how can you tell if a painting is a Kinkade original?”
“Funny you should ask! Thomas Kinkade was a man ahead of his time,” she said. “He used his own blood in his signatures.”
“Beg pardon?”
“The artist. He feared his famous style would be copied, so he began to include a bit of his blood when he signed a painting. For the DNA. Can’t fake that signature!”
“I should think not,” Harper murmured. She was starting to think the world of fine art was a world unto its own. Signing paintings in blood sounded too much like making a deal with the devil.
